Running 'Cause I Can't Fly 2

Thursday, November 26, 2020

"We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering On Thanksgiving Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s"

"We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering On Thanksgiving

Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s"

by Michael Snyder

"In my entire lifetime, there has never been a Thanksgiving like this. 39 million Americans don’t have enough to eat right now, more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits have been filed so far during this calendar year, and people are waiting in line for hours at food banks all over the nation just for some Thanksgiving handouts. If you and your family have plenty of turkey to eat, you should be very thankful, because many Americans can no longer even take Thanksgiving dinner for granted these days. On Tuesday, vehicles were lined up for hours in New Jersey as people waited to receive prepackaged Thanksgiving meals at a local food bank:

"Video obtained by CNN on Tuesday from the Meadowlands entertainment complex in New Jersey showed residents waiting for several hours to obtain prepackaged boxes of meals for the Thanksgiving holiday. “If it wasn’t for this place, we wouldn’t know where we would get our food,” one distraught woman told CNN of the food bank in East Rutherford, N.J."

Of course we have been seeing similar wait times all over the nation. At one food bank in Texas, demand for Thanksgiving meals was more than eight times higher than normal: "Food bank officials in Dallas, Texas, have also noticed a staggering increase in demand for food assistance. North Texas Food Bank representatives told the Dallas Morning News that they handed out roughly 8,500 meals to local families during a giveaway on Saturday that in years past has seen fewer than 1,000 show up for donations."

You can see a stunning photograph of vehicles lined up for that food distribution event right here. There are a lot of really nice vehicles in that picture. Many of those individuals are probably accustomed to living comfortable middle class lifestyles, but just like I warned in my new book they are “suddenly” in need of food because this economic downturn has turned their worlds completely upside down.

Yes, there have always been hungry people in America, but what we are witnessing now is hard to fathom. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 12 percent of all Americans did not have enough food to eat between October 28th and November 9th: "As the coronavirus pandemic continues to surge, more Americans are reporting going hungry, a Washington Post analysis found.

In data collected by the Census Bureau between Oct. 28 and Nov. 9, around 12 percent of all American adults reported not having enough food to eat, a figure higher than at any other point since the pandemic began earlier this year. It is estimated that the current population of the United States is 328 million. If you take 12 percent of 328 million, you get more than 39 million Americans that are going hungry right now."

And this is just the beginning. Thanks to the new lockdowns that are being instituted all over the country, the number of Americans that are filing for unemployment benefits is starting to rise again: "The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to 778,000, evidence that the U.S. economy and job market remain under strain as coronavirus cases surge and colder weather heighten the risks. The Labor Department’s report Wednesday said jobless claims climbed from 748,000 the week before. Before the virus struck hard in mid-March, weekly claims typically amounted to roughly 225,000."

Overall, more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed in 2020. As I discussed yesterday, we have never seen anything like this before in all of U.S. history.

At this point, even Hollywood is conducting mass layoffs. More job loss announcements just keep rolling in with each passing day, and I expect that to continue all throughout the very dark winter ahead.

Other economic numbers also tell us that the U.S. economy is definitely heading in the wrong direction: "The data firm Womply says that 21% of small businesses were shuttered at the start of this month, reflecting a steady increase from June’s 16% rate. Consumer spending at local businesses is down 27% this month from a year ago, marking a deterioration from a 20% year-over-year drop in October, Womply found."

If you think that anyone is going to be able to wave a magic wand and fix this mess, you are just being delusional.

There are millions upon millions of Americans that have already been pushed to the breaking point by this pandemic. One of those individuals is a 38-year-old California resident named Andrew Lee: “I’ve exhausted all of my unemployment benefits. I’ve had to resort to food stamps and [California’s Medicaid program] for the first time in my life. I’m backdated on my rent and my credit has been ruined,” said 38-year-old Andrew Lee, who lives in a suburb of Los Angeles with his wife and two children."

Lee lost his job as a business development director several months before the pandemic. But once it hit, it became that much harder to find work. And he didn’t initially qualify for any pandemic-related unemployment benefits. His car has been repossessed and his wife’s car has also been repossessed. So even if they could find jobs, how are they supposed to get to work?

Lee is just like so many other hurting Americans. First he ran through all of his savings, and then he started relying on his credit cards. Now that his unemployment benefits have been exhausted, he is out of options, and his family is a step or two from becoming homeless.

In the months ahead, tens of millions of others will find themselves facing similar scenarios. This is what an economic collapse looks like. The United States hasn’t had to face anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and what we have experienced so far is just the start.

In 2019, I received quite a bit of criticism because the economy was relatively stable and to many people it seemed like an “economic collapse” was not even remotely a possibility. But now an economic collapse has officially arrived, and all of the things that I have been warning about are starting to happen one right after the other. The “perfect storm” is upon us, and most Americans still do not understand the horrors that lie ahead."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"The Most Precious Gift I Have..."

"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself."

- Walter Anderson

“Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard”

“Here’s The Real Story About Thanksgiving You’ve Never Heard”

Especially the parts about Squanto the “friendly Indian.”

by Nick Bauman

“The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes a bit like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they found a rich land full of animals and were greeted by a friendly Indian named Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn. The true story is more complicated. Once you learn about the real Squanto- also known as Tisquantum- you’ll have a great yarn to tell your family over the Thanksgiving table.

I asked historian Charles Mann, the author of “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, and Paula Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and an expert on Wampanoag history, to tell me the real story. “This is not revisionist history,” Peters promised. “This is history that’s just been overlooked because people have become very, very comfortable with the story of happy Pilgrims and friendly Indians. They’re very content with that- even to the point where no one really questioned how is it that Squanto knew how to speak perfect English when they came.”

Here’s what really happened. In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in modern-day Massachusetts, an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped Tisquantum from his village, Patuxet, which was part of a group of villages known as the Wampanoag confederation. (Europeans had started visiting the northeast of what is now the United States by the 1520s, and probably as early as the 1480s.) Hunt took Tisquantum and around two dozen other kidnapped Wampanoag to Spain, where he tried to sell them into slavery.

“It caused quite a commotion when this guy showed up trying to sell these people,” Mann said. “A bunch of people in the church said no way.” Tisquantum escaped slavery- with the help of Catholic friars, according to some accounts- then somehow found his way to England. He finally made it back to what is now Massachusetts in 1619. As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America, Peters notes.

As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Wampanoags to ever return to North America. But while Tisquantum was in Europe, an epidemic had swept across New England. “The account that’s recorded by Gov. Bradford of Plymouth Plantation is that there’s a shipwreck of French sailors that year on Cape Cod,” Mann said. “One of them carried some disease and it wiped out a huge percentage of the population in coastal new England. The guess is it was some kind of viral hepatitis, which is easily communicated in water. It exploded like chains of firecrackers.”

When Tisquantum returned to Patuxet, he found that he was the village’s only survivor. “Into this bumbled the Pilgrims,” Mann said. “They had shown up in New England a few weeks before winter. Up until the Pilgrims, the pattern had been pretty clear. Europeans would show up, and Indians would be interested in their trade goods, but they were really uninterested in letting [Europeans] permanently occupy land.” Often, armed native people would even force Europeans to leave if they attempted to stay too long.

This time, the Europeans wanted to stay, and the disease that had decimated Patuxet ensured that they had a place to settle. “Patuxet ultimately becomes Plymouth,” Peters explained. “They find this cleared land and just the bones of the Indians. They called it divine providence: God killed these Indians so we could live here.” A website Peters helped create for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival puts it even more bluntly: “The graveyard of [Tisquantum's] people became Plymouth Colony.”

Massasoit, a local Wampanoag leader, didn’t trust Tisquantum. “He looks at this guy and smells trouble,” Mann said. Massasoit kept Tisquantum under what was essentially house arrest until the Pilgrims showed up and promptly started starving to death.

Patuxet wasn’t the only native village decimated by the plague. The entire Wampanoag confederation had been badly hit – as much as 75 percent of the Wampanoag population was wiped out, Mann said. But the Narragansett, a rival neighboring group, basically weren’t affected by the disease at all. That put the Wampanoag in a precarious strategic position. Massasoit had an idea. “He decides we’ll ally with these guys, set up a good trading relationship, control supply of English goods, and the Narragansett won’t be able to attack us,” Mann said. On March 22, 1621, Massasoit went to meet with the Pilgrims. He brought Tisquantum along to translate.

Mann described the meeting in a 2005 article in Smithsonian Magazine: “Tisquantum most likely was not the name he was given at birth. In that part of the Northeast, tisquantum referred to rage, especially the rage of manitou, the world-suffusing spiritual power at the heart of coastal Indians’ religious beliefs. When Tisquantum approached the Pilgrims and identified himself by that sobriquet, it was as if he had stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, I’m the Wrath of God.”

Massasoit was right not to trust Tisquantum, who soon tried to pit the Pilgrims against him. But the plan didn’t work: Massasoit “is just pissed off and demands the Pilgrims hand him over because he’s gonna execute him,” Mann said. The Pilgrims didn’t. Instead, Tisquantum stayed in the colony with them, helping them prepare for the next winter.

“Never did the newcomers ask themselves why he might be making himself essential,” Mann wrote in Smithsonian. “But from the Pilgrims’ accounts of their dealings with him, the answer seems clear: the alternative to staying in Plymouth was returning to Massasoit and renewed captivity.”

It’s all a lot more complicated – Machiavellian, even – than the story you might have learned. Mann in Smithsonian again: “By fall the settlers’ situation was secure enough that they held a feast of thanksgiving. Massasoit showed up with “some ninety men,” Winslow later recalled, most of them with weapons. The Pilgrim militia responded by marching around and firing their guns in the air in a manner intended to convey menace. Gratified, both sides sat down, ate a lot of food and complained about the Narragansett. Ecce Thanksgiving.”

So what does this all mean? “While it was by far not the first occasion of human trafficking conducted by European explorers to the new world, the capture of Squanto and his fellow tribesmen would forever alter the course of history for people on two continents,” Peters wrote on the anniversary website. “We learn about Columbus landing in 1492 and it’s as if nothing happened for over 100 years until the Pilgrims landed,” Mann added. “But the Tisquantum story gives you this tiny peek into that all the people involved had been interacting for more than a century. And today, of course, the Wampanoag are still around.”

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/26/2020"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 11/26/2020"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Voter fraud was on display Thursday at a hearing put on by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. The hearing was given to legislators responsible for allocating the state’s 20 Electoral College votes for President of the United States. Massive voter fraud was alleged by Rudy Giuliani, who is spearheading the President’s election legal team. Giuliani highlighted dozens of people who witnessed fraud on many levels. One expert testified Biden had nearly 600,000 votes dumped on his side of the ledger, while Trump vote dumps were 3,200. All states have at least one illegal thing in common and that is mail-in ballots that were fraudulently counted and used. The Trump team says it will prove in court the President won on election night by a landslide, and fraud stole the election from him in several states.

Half the ballots cast in the 2020 election in Nevada were mail-in ballots. The Trump election team says one huge flaw is the signatures were not verified and, in many cases, not even signed. This makes them invalid and unconstitutional. This is a huge problem in all contested states in the 2020 election. Just this one illegal voting flaw is enough to turn the election back to Trump’s favor in all contested states. There were many other forms of election fraud as well, according to people suing for the President and “We the People.”

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks. Greg Hunter has a message and will talk about that and many other stories in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Full screen mode please. Feel it...

○

"I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, not any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.

That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense.

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue."

- William Wordsworth,

"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"

○

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that

only loneliness can help you find them again.

Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them.

Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"

Must Watch! “Destruction Of The US Economy And Jobs; The Financial Crisis Has Begun; Economy Falls Into The Abyss”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Destruction Of The US Economy And Jobs;

The Financial Crisis Has Begun; Economy Falls Into The Abyss”

Happy Thanksgiving!

And God help us all...

"The Panic Has Begun! Hunger And Fear Are Rising In America As Difficult Times Approaching"

"The Panic Has Begun! Hunger And Fear Are

Rising In America As Difficult Times Approaching"

by Epic Economist

"Tens of millions of Americans are about to face one of the toughest winters ever recorded in U.S history. As companies continue to announce massive lay-offs, adding to the already staggering unemployment rate, several households are facing food and housing insecurity. The virus-induced economic downturn continues to cause financial devastation on the working poor, and left without a source of income or federal assistance, more and more people are now reliant on food banks to have enough to eat.

Reports from Texas, Colorado, Rhode Island, and many other states are describing growing food bank lines all across the nation. Moreover, permanent job losses continue to surge signaling a double-dip recession seems to be fast approaching. In this video, we examine how the tragic hunger crisis that has been affecting millions of U.S. families is a clear indication that the economic meltdown is far from over.

The more we scroll the latest news' feed the more we see reports detailing how the growing food insecurity that has been spreading all over America is leaving food banks overwhelmed by such a sudden spike in demand. Currently, millions of U.S. citizens are going hungry and relying on volunteers and non-profit organizations to stay fed during the forthcoming holiday season and the approaching winter.

A clear picture of the economic suffering experienced by American workers can be seen in kilometric food bank lines, where some wait for up to eight hours to be provided with basic food supplies they no longer can afford. Last weekend, in Texas, one of the largest-ever food giveaways handed out more than 600,000 pounds of food to 25,000 hungry people, according to the North Texas Food Bank.

Many families that now need food bank’s help have never needed their help before, many have affirmed that without it, they wouldn't have anything to eat. In the southern area of the state, the positivity rate has reached 11%. Consequently, business reopening plans were postponed and owners have already started another round of lay-offs and furloughs which, in turn, will impact Texans' food insecurity levels.

Moreover, distance learning has been adding extra stress on parents when it comes to feeding their kids. A child would miss 10 meals in a week, and if a mom has two to three kids in school, she’s now feeling the impact of the cost of that food at home, and without employment, kids are going hungry. Schools are reporting that kids are struggling with their education because they don’t have access to good nutrition.

Food insecurity often disproportionately impacts people of color, seniors, and those living in low-income communities. Though the factors underlying racial and ethnic disparities in the United States are multifaceted and complex, long-standing disparities in nutrition and obesity play a crucial role in the health inequities. As a result, such mal-nourished, food-insecure people are becoming increasingly more vulnerable to the current virus.

According to a Feeding America survey, over 54 million Americans don’t have access to sufficient food. That's why scenes just as seen in Texas are being repeated across the country. In Denver, the Weinberg Food Pantry has been handing free groceries to locals. The pantry operates three days a week, and Shelly Hines, director of community resources and stability for the agency, revealed that since the health crisis has started, business has quadrupled.

A lot are people that haven't ever been in this situation before, have worked their whole lives and were furloughed. This distressing situation undergone by so many individuals has emphasized how the middle class isn't immune to the struggles brought by the economic downturn. In Rhode Island, the hunger calamity has hit a whole new level. The local community food bank’s released informed that one out of 4 people in the state were unable to provide enough food for themselves and their families.

According to Andrew Schiff, the food bank’s chief executive officer, such critical circumstances are poised to get worse, considering evidence that "there might be a certain amount of donor fatigue”. "We're coming up against that moment when bankruptcy, eviction, and hunger break out all over, jeopardizing what will already be a slow economic recovery".

Schiff's statement came at the same time JPMorgan predicted a negative first-quarter growth for the 2021 U.S. GDP. JPM's chief economist Michael Feroli, wrote that “the economy no longer has a tailwind; instead, it now faces the headwind of increasing restrictions on activity." And given that the holiday season "threatens a further increase in cases. This winter will be grim," and their forecasts suggest the economy will contract again. In other words, the double-dip recession economists and market strategists have been warning about is on the verge of happening."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com

"Only Then..."

“In our society, confidence leads to knowledge – which leads to power – which leads to pride – which leads to a fear of seeming ignorant – which constricts learning like an iron vise. We must understand that confidence is a blessing, for it is the embodiment of self-love, and through it we find the fuel for innovation and progress. We must realize that ignorance is merely the opportunity to learn more. And lastly, we must marvel rather than groan at the fact that there will always be more to learn… Only then will we be free of the intellectual prisons we have so readily caged ourselves within.”

- Zeb Reynolds

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.”

- Albert Einstein

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art”

“The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 49,500 reproductions. It was started in 1996 as a topical site of the Renaissance art, originated in the Italian city-states of the 14th century and spread to other countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. Intending to present Renaissance art as comprehensively as possible, the scope of the collection was later extended to show its Medieval roots as well as its evolution to Baroque and Rococo via Mannerism. More recently the periods of Neoclassicism and Romanticism were also included.

The collection has some of the characteristics of a virtual museum. The experience of the visitors is enhanced by guided tours helping to understand the artistic and historical relationship between different works and artists, by period music of choice in the background and a free postcard service. At the same time the collection serves the visitors’ need for a site where various information on art, artists and history can be found together with corresponding pictorial illustrations. Although not a conventional one, the collection is a searchable database supplemented by a glossary containing articles on art terms, relevant historical events, personages, cities, museums and churches.

The Web Gallery of Art is intended to be a free resource of art history primarily for students and teachers. It is a private initiative not related to any museums or art institutions, and not supported financially by any state or corporate sponsors. However, we do our utmost, using authentic literature and advice from professionals, to ensure the quality and authenticity of the content.

We are convinced that such a collection of digital reproductions, containing a balanced mixture of interlinked visual and textual information, can serve multiple purposes. On one hand it can simply be a source of artistic enjoyment; a convenient alternative to visiting a distant museum, or an incentive to do just that. On the other hand, it can serve as a tool for public education both in schools and at home.”

- http://www.wga.hu/

“Luminarium”

“Luminarium”

by Anniina Jokinen

“This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one. Many works from Medieval, Renaissance, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries can be found here.

The site started in early 1996. I remember looking for essays to spark an idea for a survey class I was taking at the time. It seemed that finding study materials online was prohibitively difficult and time-consuming—there was no all-encompassing site which could have assisted me in my search. I started the site as a public service, because I myself had to waste so much time as a student, trying to find anything useful or interesting. There were only a handful of sites back then (read: Internet Dark Ages) and I could spend hours on search engines, looking for just a few things. I realized I must not be the only one in the predicament and started a simple one-page site of links to Middle English Literature. That page was soon followed by a Renaissance site.

Gradually it became obvious that the number of resources was ungainly for such a simple design. It was then that the multi-page “Medlit” and “Renlit” pages were created, around July 1996. That structure is still the same today. In September 1996, I started creating the “Sevenlit” site, launched in November. I realized the need to somehow unite all three sites, and that led to the creation of Luminarium. I chose the name, which is Latin for “lantern,” because I wanted the site to be a beacon of light in the darkness. It was also befitting for a site containing authors considered “luminaries” of English literature.

I wanted the site to be a multimedia experience in the periods. I find it easier to visualize what I am reading when there is a small illustration or a tidbit about the background of the author or his work. The music and art of the period serve to complement one’s rational experience of the site with the emotional. There are people who write to me who seem to think that if something has a beautiful wrapping, it cannot possibly have scholarly insides. But I do not see why something scholarly cannot at the same time be attractive. It is that marriage of form and function, so celebrated during the Renaissance, for which my site strives.”

- http://www.luminarium.org/

•

This is a unique source of endless wonder, a treasure, for those who

love the English language. You’ll spend many enjoyable hours here…

- CP

Musical Interlude: “Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”

Full screen mode recommended.

“Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song

Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”

By Melanie Curtin

“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.

Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to it."

- https://www.youtube.com/

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known.

The galaxy’s protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872′s spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160426.html

Chet Raymo, “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

“Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright…”

by Chet Raymo

“Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” You may recall these words from Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” There is nothing intrinsically cheerful about the world, she says. To live is to die; it’s all part of the bargain. Stars destroy themselves to make the atoms of our bodies. Every creature lives to eat and be eaten. And into this incomprehensible, unfathomable, apparently stochastic melee stumbles… You and I.

With qualities that we have - so far - seen nowhere else. Hope. Humor. A sense of justice. A sense of beauty. Gratitude. But also: Anger. Hurt. Despair. Strangers in a strange land.

Galaxies by the billions turn like St. Catherine Wheels, throwing off sparks of exploding stars. Atoms eddy and flow, blowing hot and cold, groping and promiscuous. A wind of neutrinos gusts through our bodies, Energy billows and swells. A myriad of microorganisms nibble at our flesh.

We have a sense that something purposeful is going on, something that involves us. Something secret, holy and fleet. But we haven’t a clue what it is. We make up stories. Stories in which we are the point of it all. We tell the stories over and over. To our children. To ourselves. And the stories fill up the space of our ignorance.

Until they don’t. And then the great yawning spaces open again. And time clangs down on our heads like a pummeling rain, like the collapsing ceiling of the sky. Dazed, stunned, we stagger like giddy topers towards our own swift dissolution. Inexplicably praising. Admiring. Wondering. Giving thanks.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

○

“The Tyger”

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

- William Blake

"Briefly..."

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.”

- Erich Fromm

"Doug Casey on the COVID Thanksgiving Restrictions and the 'Great Reset'"

"Doug Casey on the COVID

Thanksgiving Restrictions and the 'Great Reset'"

by International Man

"International Man: Thanksgiving and the holiday season are here. The COVID hysteria has justified a new wave of government restrictions. Many governors and mayors are ordering citizens to "stay at home" and cancel their traditional plans. Is this a "new normal" in which local officials feel emboldened to dictate more and more of what people can do in their own homes?

Doug Casey: There's not much question about it. First, let me draw your attention to an important fundamental: the type of people who go into government. It doesn't matter if it's national, state, county, or city government. They're the kind of people who think they know what's best for others and like bossing them around. They see the virus as a great opportunity to make themselves important and to cement themselves in power. They want to deconstruct America. The phrase "build back better" is being used not just by people in the new Biden regime but by people all over the world.

These people see the COVID hysteria as an excuse for a "Great Reset." They don't describe exactly what the elements of the Great Reset might be, but they're hitting the same notes sung by the people that go to the World Economic Forum in Davos. They're promoting a great change in the world at large and America in particular.

It appears the world is ready for it; however, it's for the same reasons that Biden won the election. I listed six factors why I thought Biden would win in our interview a couple of months ago: the virus hysteria, a pending economic collapse, negative demographics, the moral collapse of the old order, and the Deep State, and, of course, cheating - which was critical in the short term. There's no question that stormy times are ahead.

We’re headed for a great leap forward - to borrow a phrase from Mao - in State power. Much higher taxes, much higher inflation, much more regulation, a big drop in the general standard of living, and a fair measure of social chaos.

International Man: Among the most extreme examples of this dystopian power trip is from California’s governor Gavin Newsom. Recently, he issued a list of nine mandatory requirements for Thanksgiving social gatherings. The ridiculous list includes things like "no more than three households" at Thanksgiving, mandatory masks at all times except when eating, and no shared family-style dishes for guests. Has the COVID hysteria generated a serious new political threat to individual freedoms?

Doug Casey: It seems like the world is mimicking the dystopian movie, V for Vendetta, in which a virus played a major role. If it's not this virus, which is trivial for everyone except very old or very sick people, there will be another virus. In addition to the seasonal flu, about every decade, there’s something new—Hong Kong flu, Asian flu, swine flu, bird flu, SARS… all of them about as deadly as COVID, and none of them even remotely comparable to the Spanish flu of 1918. None of them, even the Spanish flu, had serious economic consequences. This flu is only serious because of the hysteria surrounding it.

Consequences? Testing will be mandatory, and you'll need a health passport. At some point that may include being chipped, like your dog. What shocks me is that the average person is all for it. Everybody is a "Karen" today. They shame people who don't wear their masks, despite the fact that masks are of little or no value. Masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and non-gathering are doing immense damage to society at every level—health-wise, socially, and financially. This nonsense is rupturing the social fabric everywhere. That’s extremely dangerous.

The fact is that people are looking for guidance from the government—not independent scientists, who are being "canceled" and de-platformed. This is more serious than the hysteria that started with 9/11, which is ongoing. The COVID hysteria can best be compared to the Salem Witch Trials, the Orson Wells Martian Invasion Hoax, or an end-of-the-world prediction in a religious cult.

International Man: California's Governor Newsom was recently busted at one of that state’s fanciest restaurants for breaking the exact rules he imposed on everyone else. When asked to comment, he said it was "an error in judgment." What's your take on politicians like Newsom and others who are revealing that the lockdowns are "for thee and not for me"?

Doug Casey: I don't think there's a cure for it. You've got to remember that California has elected insane politicians for decades now - one after another after another, each one worse than the one before. Why should that trend change? The voters are clearly getting what they want. In fact, the trend is accelerating towards more authoritarian leaders at every level. Fear is ruling the public psyche. And when people are afraid - whether of the virus, economic turbulence, a foreign or domestic enemy, or a hundred other things - they want "strong leadership." Elected politicians have become an elected aristocracy, a new ruling class. And they like it.

The best thing that can happen to California is that it breaks up into several states. Southern California around Los Angeles is one culture; San Francisco and Oakland are another culture. In the far north - places like Humboldt, Trinity, Siskiyou counties - are totally different cultures again. The farming areas are yet another culture. There's absolutely no reason for California to be one state. Dividing it would be a way of limiting the damage.

But that's not going to happen for a lot of reasons. Of course, as I've pointed out before, the best thing that can happen to the United States at this point is to break up into several different countries.

Politicians like Gavin Newsom live in their own silos. They're like medieval royalty. They don't know and don't really care what the little people do as long as the little people pay their taxes and do what they're told. The plebs are so indoctrinated and browbeaten that they're happy to pay their taxes and follow orders. They're told it's the cost of civilization when it's actually a sign of how uncivilized the world is becoming, and how different the US is from the ideas that once made America unique. I don't see any solution because trends stay in motion until they reach a crisis point.

There’s no question the elite are eager to promote policies like negative interest rates, the abolition of cash and more. A crisis is coming, and at that point, anything can happen. Generally speaking, when you have a crisis due to bad times, things usually get worse, because the most aggressive liars and power-grabbers take control. So, I'm not terribly optimistic about the near-term future. "

- internationalman.com

Gregory Mannarino, “Free-Fall” - The FED Will Soon Unleash More Debt Than Ever Before”

Gregory Mannarino,

“Free-Fall” -

The FED Will Soon Unleash More Debt Than Ever Before”

- https://traderschoice.net/

Musical Interlude: Moby, "Love Of Strings"

Moby, "Love Of Strings"

Life... magnificent, precious Life.

Full screen a must!

The Daily "Near You?"

Vineland, New Jersey, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party"

"What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party"

by Kate Bowler

"Every 90 days I lie in a whirling CT machine, dye coursing through my veins, and the doctors look to see whether the tumors in my liver are growing. If they are not, the doctors smile and schedule another scan. The rhythm has been the same since my doctors told me I had stage IV colon cancer two and a half years ago. I live for three months, take a deep breath and hope to start over again. I will probably do this for the rest of my life. Whatever that means.

When my scan is over, I need to make clear to my friends and my family that though I pray to be declared cured, I must be grateful. I have three more months of life. Hallelujah. So I try to put the news in a little Facebook post, that mix of sun and cloud. I am trying to clear the linguistic hurdles that show up on my chart. Noncurative. Stage IV. I want to communicate that I am hoping for a continued durable remission in the face of no perfect cure, but the comments section is a blurry mess of, "You kicked cancer's butt!" and "God bless you in your preparations."

It feels impossible to transmit the kernel of truth. I am not dying. I am not terminal. I am keeping vigil in the place of almost death. I stand in the in-between where everyone must pass, but so few can remain.

I was recently at a party in a head-to-toe Tonya Harding costume, my blond wig in a perfect French braid, and a woman I know spotted me from across the dance floor. "I guess you're not dying!" she yelled over the music, and everyone stopped to stare at me. I'm working on it!" I yelled back, after briefly reconsidering my commitment to pacifism.

We all harbor the knowledge, however covertly, that we're going to die, but when it comes to small talk, I am the angel of death. I have seen people try to swallow their own tongue after uttering the simple words, "How are you?" I watch loved ones devolve into stammering good wishes and then devastating looks of pity. I can see how easily a well-meaning but ill-placed suggestion makes them want to throw themselves into oncoming traffic.

A friend came back from Australia with a year's worth of adventures to tell and ended with a breathless, "You have to go there sometime!" He lapsed into silence, seeming to remember at that very moment that I was in the hospital. And I didn't know how to say that the future was like a language I didn't speak anymore.

Most people I talk with succumb immediately to a swift death by free association. I remind them of something horrible and suddenly they are using words like pustules at my child's fourth-birthday party. They might be reminded of an aunt, a neighbor or a cousin's friend. No matter how distant the connection, all the excruciating particularities of this person's misfortune will be excavated.

This is not comforting. But I remind myself to pay attention because some people give you their heartbreak like a gift. It was a month or so into my grueling chemotherapy regimen when my favorite nurse sat down next to me at the cancer clinic and said softly: "I've been meaning to tell you. I lost a baby." The way she said "baby," with the lightest touch, made me understand. She had nurtured a spark of life in her body and held that child in her arms, and somewhere along the way she had been forced to bury that piece of herself in the ground. I might have known by the way she smoothed all my frayed emotions and never pried for details about my illness. She knew what it was like to keep marching long after the world had ended.

What does the suffering person really want? How can you navigate the waters left churning in the wake of tragedy? I find that the people least likely to know the answer to these questions can be lumped into three categories: minimizers, teachers and solvers.

The minimizers are those who think I shouldn/t be so upset because the significance of my illness is relative. These people are very easy to spot because most of their sentences begin with, "Well, at least.." Minimizers often want to make sure that suffering people are truly deserving before doling out compassion.

My sister was on a plane from Toronto to visit me in the hospital and told her seatmate why she was traveling. Then, as she wondered when she had signed up to be a contestant in the calamity Olympics, the stranger explained that my cancer was vastly preferable to life during the Iranian revolution.

Some people minimize spiritually by reminding me that cosmically, death isn't the ultimate end. It doesn't matter, in the end, whether we are here or there. It's all the same, said a woman in the prime of her youth. She emailed this message to me with a lot of praying-hand emoticons. I am a professor at a Christian seminary, so a lot of Christians like to remind me that heaven is my true home, which makes me want to ask them if they would like to go home before me. Maybe now?

Atheists can be equally bossy by demanding that I immediately give up any search for meaning. One told me that my faith was holding me hostage to an inscrutable God, that I should let go of this theological guesswork and realize that we are living in a neutral universe. But the message is the same: Stop complaining and accept the world as it is.

The second exhausting type of response comes from the teachers, who focus on how this experience is supposed to be an education in mind, body and spirit. "I hope you have a Job experience", one man said bluntly. I can't think of anything worse to wish on someone. God allowed Satan to rob Job of everything, including his children's lives. Do I need to lose something more to learn God's character? Sometimes I want every know-it-all to send me a note when they face the grisly specter of death, and I'll send them a poster of a koala that says, "Hang in there!"

The hardest lessons come from the solutions people, who are already a little disappointed that I am not saving myself. There is always a nutritional supplement, Bible verse or mental process I have not adequately tried. "Keep smiling! Your attitude determines your destiny!" said a stranger named Jane in an email, having heard my news somewhere, and I was immediately worn out by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.

There is a trite cruelty in the logic of the perfectly certain. Those people are not simply trying to give me something. They are tallying up the sum of my life - looking for clues, sometimes for answers - for the purpose of pronouncing a verdict. But I am not on trial. To so many people, I am no longer just myself. I am a reminder of a thought that is difficult for the rational brain to accept: that the elements that constitute our bodies might fail at any moment. When I originally got my diagnosis at age 35, all I could think to say was, "But I have a son." It was the best argument I had. I can't end. This world can't end. It had just begun.

A tragedy is like a fault line. A life is split into a before and an after, and most of the time, the before was better. Few people will let you admit that out loud. Sometimes those who love you best will skip that first horrible step of saying: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this is happening to you." Hope may prevent them from acknowledging how much has already been lost. But acknowledgment is also a mercy. It can be a smile or a simple, "Oh, hon, what a year you've had." It does not ask anything from me but makes a little space for me to stand there in that moment. Without it, I often feel like I am starring in a reality program about a woman who gets cancer and is very cheerful about it.

After acknowledgment must come love. This part is tricky because when friends and acquaintances begin pouring out praise, it can sound a little too much like a eulogy. I've had more than one kindly letter written about me in the past tense, when I need to be told who I might yet become.

But the impulse to offer encouragement is a perfect one. There is tremendous power in touch, in gifts and in affirmations when everything you knew about yourself might not be true anymore. I am a professor, but will I ever teach again? I'm a mom, but for how long? A friend knits me socks and another drops off cookies, and still another writes a funny email or takes me to a concert. These seemingly small efforts are anchors that hold me to the present, that keep me from floating away on thoughts of an unknown future. They say to me, like my sister Maria did on one very bad day: "Yes, the world is changed, dear heart, but do not be afraid. You are loved, you are loved. You will not disappear. I am here."

- https://www.nytimes.com/

○

"Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be."

- Orson Scott Card

"The Simple Step..."

"Our Frustrations Run Far Deeper Than Covid Lockdowns"

"Our Frustrations Run Far Deeper Than Covid Lockdowns"

by Charles Hugh Smith

It's easy to lay America's visible frustrations at the feet of Covid lockdowns or political polarization, but this conveniently ignores the real driver: systemic unfairness. The status quo has been increasingly rigged to benefit insiders and elites as the powers of central banks and governments have picked the winners (cronies, insiders, cartels and monopolies) and shifted the losses and risks onto the losers (the rest of us).

We now live in the world the 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat so aptly described: "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."

As I noted in "The One Chart That Predicts our Future," ours is a two-tier society and economy with a broken ladder of social mobility for those trying to reach the security of the technocrat class and a well-greased slide for everyone who trips and slides from relative security down to the ever-expanding ALICE-precariat class: assets limited, income constrained, employed.

As Bastiat observed, those rigging the system to benefit themselves always create a legal system that lets them off scot-free and a PR scheme that glorifies their predation as well-deserved rewards that are the natural due of their enormous appetite for hard work and innovation.

You know, hard work and innovation like this: "JPMorgan Makes $1 Billion From Gold Trading After Paying $1 Billion Fine For Manipulating Gold Trading." Embezzling a couple billion dollars also earns you a get out of jail free card: none of the perps in Wall Street's skims, scams and frauds ever gets indicted, much less convicted, and none of Wall Street's legalized looters ever goes to prison.

And this is a fair and just system? Uh, right. Meanwhile, the reality is the roulette wheel is rigged and only chumps believe it's a fair game. Those who know it's rigged have essentially zero agency (control / power) or capital to demand an unrigged game or finagle their way into the elite class doing the skimming.

The net result is soaring frustration with a patently unfair system that's touted as the fairest in the entire world. Gordon Long and I do a deep dive into the frustrations with systemic unfairness in our new video, "The Frustrations of Unfairness Are Reaching a Boiling Point:, below.

The key takeaway in my view is the unfairness isn't limited to the economy, society or politics - it's manifesting in all three realms. It isn't just frustration with domestic issues - the global economic order is also a source of unfairness and powerlessness. We each drew up a list of specific drivers of unfairness / frustration. Here's my list:

And here's Gordon's list:

There is much more in our presentation. These are the dynamics that are tearing apart our social cohesion and that will soon start destabilizing the economy - regardless of how much "money" the Federal Reserve prints.